Xenakis's Convenient Bride(22)

Stavros moved to stand behind her. She sensed his hand gripping the back of the settee near her shoulder.

"No," he agreed solemnly. "No, it's not."

"He can't say he didn't know how I got pregnant or by who. I called him  and told him it was his. He offered to send money for an abortion. When I  refused, he offered to pay me off if I kept quiet. He didn't want his  parents to know, but my father contacted them once he realized I was  pregnant. He figured they would pay more than Brandon had offered, and I  guess they did."

She swallowed, recalling how sordid she had felt by it all, how she had begged her father to stay out of it.

"I didn't want money, especially when they said I would have to give him  up. I thought Brandon loved me, that he would want to get married, but  he just wanted me to go away."

"But he did want the baby?" Stavros spoke low and level, getting the facts. "He must have, if he took him."

She plucked her words from a maelstrom of deep, twisted emotions. Each  extraction was agony. "Since he doesn't appear to have a son, I would  say no, he did not want our baby."

"But you're certain he took him?"

"Someone did."

"Who?"

"Exactly." Her voice caught and she had to clear her throat. She snugged  the blanket higher around her shoulders and neck. "Dorian was two weeks  old and I woke up because I heard him crying. He wasn't in his  bassinet. I went to the kitchen and my father was up, even though it was  two o'clock in the morning. He said Dorian had died. I mean, really? I  ran outside and I could hear a car engine. Our place was near the  private airfield and a few minutes later I heard the helicopter. Papa  stuck to the story and when I became hysterical, he let loose, then  turned me out."

Stavros swore, stark and hard.

"That's when you wound up sleeping on the beach? For how long? You had just had a baby."

"Takis thought my pimp had worked me over. He wanted to take me to the police."

"You didn't go? For God's sake, why not?" His voice rang with disbelief, making her shrink all the more tightly into the corner.

"I was scared. Ashamed. My mother was standing by what my father had  done. Said Dorian was in a better place. But where was the body? I  accused Papa of killing him. That's when he really came after me. Not a  man who will stand for being accused of murdering a baby, but he had no  compunction leaving his daughter for dead on his front step."         

     



 

"He abused you? Regularly?" His voice was steely and terrifying, making her tremble. She curled even tighter under the blanket.

"Mostly we knew how to keep from making him angry. I was just so upset about losing Dorian."

"Calli." The settee creaked as he leaned over her. "Being beaten wasn't your fault. None of this was."

She flinched at the way he was speaking, throwing the words down on her  like stones. She leaned away, not really caring about that part of it  anymore anyway.

"Takis took me to the police when I finally told him. By that time, Papa  had used the Underwoods' money to buy a death certificate. The police  refused to investigate. Takis had his lawyer send a few letters, but the  Underwoods stonewalled. They called me an opportunist and said I was  deluded." She shivered. "They said if I had a baby, it wasn't Brandon's.  That given the way I was behaving, I wasn't a fit mother anyway."

"So you don't know for sure that-" He rubbed his hand down his face. "Do you know if your son is alive?" he asked gently.

"In here." Her voice broke as she touched above her left breast. "In my  heart, I know he's alive. Just as I'm sure that Brandon knows where he  is. That's all I wanted to do tonight. Ask. But no one wants me to know  what happened to my son. Even Takis didn't want me to know, not really.  He didn't want me to leave him and Ophelia."

Her voice thickened and the tears threatened to come back, burning hotly  and stinging the edges of her eyelids, thickening her throat.

"Calli-"

"I'm really tired." She forced herself to stand, numb fingers clinging  to keep the blanket around her while she swayed on her feet. "Do you-Can  I pack in the morning? I'm sorry. I'm just really tired." Her legs felt  too weak to support her.

"No. I mean yes. I mean, go to bed." He spoke in a flat, gruff voice and  followed up with a curse that made her hunch protectively again. "Do  you need help?"

"No." She took the few steps to the bed and let herself drop onto it,  eyes closed, cocooned in the blanket as she curled into a ball of misery  and escaped yet another dark, hopeless night.



Stavros put on a fresh pot of coffee when he heard Calli stir. He was  glad to finally have something constructive to do, having made as much  progress as he could and was now just waiting until he would have to  wake her.

She showered and came into the kitchen as he was scrambling eggs.

She paused when she saw him, face bare of makeup, eyes bruised, mouth  pouted. She had slept late, but she looked like she could use another  twelve hours. She pulled the lapels of her robe closed, sitting at the  island when he set her breakfast there.

"Thank you," she murmured.

He slid her phone toward her. "Takis would like to hear from you."

"Is Ophelia okay?" She picked it up to check her history.

"She's the one who called. She had some questions about cosmetics. I asked her to put me on to him."

"Why?" Her honey-gold eyes flashed up, deeply defensive and wary.

His heart flipped over in his chest. There weren't words sorry enough  for the pain he had caused her last night. He swallowed, helpless and  furious and perhaps not as regretful as he should be, because she had  been going about this all wrong.

He kept all of that to himself, though. He instinctively knew that any  sort of strong emotion from him right now would send her shrinking into  her shell.

"I wanted to know what steps he had taken to find your son."

Her sooty lashes fell and she set aside her phone. She tucked her hands in her lap and her voice cooled. "Why?"

He sighed, and pointed at her fork, urging her to eat. "Be thankful I  did. My first instinct was to go beat the truth out of Underwood. Takis  counseled me to use proper channels."

Actually, he had said, "Be careful. Once they knew she was looking for  him, they closed ranks. I hired an investigator who found nothing.  Meanwhile, steps were taken that nearly cost me my career, my daughter's  future and my ability to support both of them. Nothing that could be  traced back, of course, but the pressure stopped when the search was  dropped. Calli doesn't know about that and I'd rather she didn't. She  castigates herself enough."

That explained why Takis hadn't seemed to try as hard as Calli would  have liked. Stavros remembered their wedding day, when Takis had said he  had let Calli down.

"I can apply my own pressure," Stavros had told Takis. "And I'm a lot more impervious to threats and retaliation than you are."         

     



 

"Why do you think I let her marry you?" Takis had said flatly. "I hoped  she would ask you for help. Good job on getting her to open up. It took  two years for her to tell me. This is not easy for her, Xenakis. She's  not as tough as she acts. Use kid gloves."

Stavros saw that. Now. Her shoulders were incredibly slight. She was  pale. Her hand seemed translucent and slender as she picked up her fork  and nudged a bite of egg.

"I tried proper channels," she murmured. "I need to talk to Brandon face-to-face."

"Calli." He leaned his elbows on the other side of the island, so they were eye level. "Why did you marry me?"

She took a few grains of egg into her mouth and let the fork slide out from her sealed lips.

"So you could come to New York and have a conversation with Brandon? You  could have come here for a week and done that years ago. That isn't all  you want, is it? Why haven't you spent any of the money I've been  giving you?"

Her lashes fell.

"Because you need to bankroll a legal battle. Right?"

"I need to know where he is first. That he's safe." Her gaze came up,  fraught and urgent. "That's the most important thing. If I start with a  letter from a lawyer, Brandon won't see it. I can guarantee you they  won't even forward it. No one will confirm Dorian is alive. But if I  look Brandon in the eye-Don't try to talk me out of this, Stavros!" Her  eyes filled as she read his expression. "Is it because you think it will  drag your family into a scandal? I won't go to the papers, I swear. I  don't want to put my own son in the middle of something public and ugly.  I wasn't going to make a scene last night. I had the words rehearsed in  my head-"

"Calli." He reached across to cover her hand. "I need you to trust me."

"No!" She stood, yanked the tie on her robe tighter and stood there shaking. "No. I won't and I don't trust you."